FALSE: Trade unionist Francis Atwoli has not been appointed to head Kenya’s electoral body
IEBC dismissed the claim, saying that the matter of the appointment of its CEO is pending in court
A Facebook post claiming that Francis Atwoli, the head of Kenya’s Central Organization of Trade Unions, has been appointed the Chief Executive Officer of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) is FALSE.
The post states that Mr Atwoli had been appointed to replace Ezra Chiloba at the IEBC. Mr Chiloba was fired in 2018.
However, the IEBC has not made any announcement on Mr Atwoli’s appointment on the commission’s website, Facebook, and Twitter accounts. IEBC communications manager Edgar Aswani also confirmed to PesaCheck that the claim is not true.
“The matter of the appointment of the IEBC CEO is still in court and as you are aware, courts are still not fully operational. Therefore, once and if the matter is concluded, it will be a matter of public knowledge and we shall also communicate the same. The commission’s acting CEO is Marjan Hussein Marjan,” Mr Aswani said.
On May 21, 2019, IEBC advertised the position of the commission secretary and CEO and received 95 applications.
“Mr Atwoli was not one of the shortlisted candidates, and even if he was, the matter awaits the court to give direction,” Mr Aswani said.
The communications manager also clarified that the appointment of the CEO follows a clear recruitment process, where the position is advertised in the local dailies and the commission’s website. This is followed by the shortlisting of candidates who have applied for the position and meet the requirements. The commission then interviews prospective candidates and through this final stage selects the person best suited for the post.
This is not the first time that a false post has claimed that Mr Atwoli has been appointed to the IEBC. On May 12, another post claimed that he had replaced Wafula Chebukati, who had purportedly resigned as the chairman.
However, Capital FM shared a similar claim in the form of a screenshot of an SMS news alert which included a link to the news organisation’s website and denounced it as fake.
PesaCheck has looked into the claim that Francis Atwoli has been appointed CEO of the IEBC, and finds it to be FALSE.
This post is part of an ongoing series of PesaCheck fact-checks examining content marked as potential misinformation on Facebook and other social media platforms.
By partnering with Facebook and similar social media platforms, third-party fact-checking organisations like PesaCheck are helping to sort fact from fiction. We do this by giving the public deeper insight and context to posts they see in their social media feeds.
Have you spotted what you think is fake news or false information on Facebook? Here’s how you can report. And, here’s more information on PesaCheck’s methodology for fact-checking questionable content.
This fact-check was written by PesaCheck Fact-Checker Simon Muli and edited by PesaCheck Deputy Editor Enock Nyariki.
The article was approved for publication by PesaCheck Managing Editor Eric Mugendi.
PesaCheck is East Africa’s first public finance fact-checking initiative. It was co-founded by Catherine Gicheru and Justin Arenstein, and is being incubated by the continent’s largest civic technology and data journalism accelerator: Code for Africa. It seeks to help the public separate fact from fiction in public pronouncements about the numbers that shape our world, with a special emphasis on pronouncements about public finances that shape government’s delivery of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) public services, such as healthcare, rural development and access to water/sanitation. PesaCheck also tests the accuracy of media reportage. To find out more about the project, visit pesacheck.org.
PesaCheck is an initiative of Code for Africa, through its innovateAFRICA fund, with support from Deutsche Welle Akademie, in partnership with a coalition of local African media and other civic watchdog organisations.
